February 2014: What We Are Reading

The Big Shift: the Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What it Means for our Future by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. Guess the next election will be the test of this book's ongoing relevance.

Having finished Andrew Chaikin's A man on the moon : the voyages of the Apollo astronauts on Jan 31st, I have begun to read Mike Mullane's Riding Rockets. This book continues the tale of NASA's space exploration with the first of the Space Shuttle astronauts. I'm also reading Revolution in Miniature, all about the invention of the transistor and the beginning of the era of semiconductors.

Finished The History of Money by Jack Weatherford (quite interesting), and just started The King and the Cowboy, about the relationship between Edward VII and Teddy Roosevelt. Nothing about TR can be boring, right?

I'm reading Rip it up and start again, a history of post-punk music. It's marvellous.

I've just started Trapped Under the Sea, and it's beginning nicely.

@Toobusyreading, that one looks great! I read a Boston Globe series on that several years ago and absolutely loved it. I cannot wait to read the full book. Let us know what you think of it!

I finished Frozen in Time on Saturday. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it. Then I spent the past two days reading Out of the Shadow of Leprosy and really did not care for it that much. Next on my list is The Napoleon of Crime - I plan to start that this evening.

I'm reading Canada's Constitutional Revolution by Barry L. Strayer

Just getting into The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt.

I'm about to start College Unbound. Higher education books are sort of my theme this year (and probably the following two).

Just finished The Girls of Atomic City and started Hitler's Last Secretary

mabith Have you read Island of Vice? It's about Teddy Roosevelt trying to clean up NYC.

11 - I have! Really enjoyed that (likewise Mornings on Horseback and River of Doubt).

I finished Happy City which briefly explores what makes us happy and then shows how our cities as presently configured, particularly in the dispersed city, does not foster happiness. Plans and examples of how the city can be made happier make up the second half of the book. It is good and further supports the prescriptions of Jane Jacobs and her followers.

Hi. I just finished Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky and am onto Hans Hofmann by Karen Wilkin. I am new here on the boards and I love non-fiction!

I have just finished Waiting on a Train by James McCommons, and current reading includes The Birth of the West by Paul Collins, The Hopkins Touch by David Roll, The Benefit and the Burden by Bruce Bartlett, and Islands of Destiny by John Prados.

I have out from the library Five days in November and Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders. Looking to start one of them next.

I finished the LTER, Hidden in Plain Sight which follows the author as she uncovers the artist Norman Rockwell as a person rather than the milk toast commercial brand he's seen as. This was a marketing ploy which he fought throughout his career and caused him a good deal of angst. She describes Mr. Rockwell's attempts to include the diversity of Americans in his pictures and the people who posed for those pictures. Upon finishing the book, I have greater respect for Norman Rockwell than previously.

I've started The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: the True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. I received it as a birthday gift a year and a half ago! High time I finally read it.

I finished Trapped Under the Sea and found it very interesting and so sad - a tragedy that could have been prevented. Lots of detail in it, could have used a little more editing IMO, but detail was necessary to understand what really happened.

Now I'm starting Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, having let it sit on my shelf for much too long even though everyone I know who has read it highly recommended it. Fascinating so far.

Just starting 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning, and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.

I am still reading the books by Prados and Roll and have started Einstein's Telescope by Evalyn Gates, and also Private Empire by Steve Coll.

I'm starting Walking Home by Simon Armitage. He's my current book crush.
And I have War child to war horse to start on CD in the car.

Just finished Walking Home by Simon Armitage. Loved it!

I'm starting Double Double: How Tim Horton's Became a Canadian Way of Life, One Cup at a Time by Douglas Hunter

Walking Home has been finished and was excellent.
Now have War child to War horse on CD. Interesting layout, 7 chapters of biography, to each of which he has written a short story. The second chapter (as far as I've got) is about school in Canterbury & in the short story he's just met the ghost of Thomas Becket, which has helped with an essay he has to write at least.

I've finished The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: the True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. I wasn't that impressed, unfortunately. Too many not particularly profound observations presented as deep insight.

Finished War child to War horse a biography of Michael Morpurgo. It was interesting, and he certainly had a troubled upbringing. But I have to say that I'm not sure I'd like him. He manages to appear driven, insecure, somewhat selfish, and doesn't sound at all like an easy person to be with. At one point he was seemingly preferring to read stories to children visiting their farm project than to his own sons. Interestingly, both his sons declined to be involved in this biography.
Each chapter had a short story written by him in response to the chapter. I thought the stories of Thomas Becket and Ragnar Erikson were the best.

I finished the first volume of Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples and moved on to the second.

I am still working on the Gates and Coll books and also reading George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volume I by Arthur J. Marder, and England and its Rulers: 1066-1307 by M. T. Clanchy.

I'm starting Forgotten Voices of the Somme and 800 Years of Women's Letters.

Also, 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning was great and well worth reading.

I finished an LTER, The Thing with Feathers. It is an excellent, fascinating collection of essays and commentaries about surprising bird qualities or behaviors. Besides describing the birds, the authors speculates as to what these facts might reveal about humans. All of this is done with humor and at a level comfortable for novice or more serious birders.

I just finished Guest of Honor by Deborah Davis earlier this week.

I finished Zlata's Diary which provides a view of life in a war zone. The grinding deprivation and fear are partially compensated by the community of neighbors, friends, and family who band together to help each other out. Since it's a child's diary, any sense of the why's are not there (but then that may be more realistic. Maybe no one knows).

I finally finished the exceptionally good Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. It took me a couple of weeks to read it because it was so intense I wanted to read lighter things in between sessions with it.

In the Plex: How Google Thinks Works and Shapes our Lives by Steven Levy is my current book-in-progress.